About a month or so ago I started to receive emails from bands about an upcoming showcase happening in Nashville. I guess by complete coincidence I happened to get a Myspace request from Next Big Nashville and so I took a look at their page and accepted and right away sent them a message asking about how one might acquire a press pass and got no response.

In the meantime I went to Chicago for Lollapalooza, came back and received two more CD’s from bands playing NBN and a couple of bloggers I have interviewed over the past few Bloggeratti shows chose bands playing at NBN. So, I became more intrigued with the event and again I messaged them asking how I could get a pres pass.

In my experience with - Lollapalooza, Austin City Limits, CMJ, Gonerfest, BSMF, Vegoose, and Voodoo Music Experience - that’s pretty much all I have ever had to say - and then someone sent me a link to a page with the procedure. Cool deal - never had a problem.

Well, on my second attempt - once again - I received no reply - even though I went back into the sent folder and could see that the messages had been read. At that point, I pretty much didn’t worry about it - I do have ACL and CMJ coming up very soon and my own shows with Giant Bear, Cloud Cult, and Magnolia Electric Company.

However, last night I got a call from John Fry and he told me he had been forwarded a message about NBN and asked me if I was planning on covering it. Well, I said I had tried to make contact with them - in the exact same way they had tried to make contact with me - and had gotten no response. He said he thought it sounded interesting, and I said that I would try again to see if I could obtain a press pass and then figured we would talk about making all the arrangements necessary to get me there - cause sure, a press pass is great and gets you in and out of venues quickly when you are trying to cover multiple bands - but I’d still have to take care of transportation, lodging, food and the like in order to give coverage to many up-and-coming bands that don’t necessarily mean more readers or listeners. But I do have an affinity for my Tennessee brethren and am usually totally up for going out of my way to get the word out about them. (Seriously, I hate to complain - but I do have three festivals in the next 6 weeks which means kenneling my dog, not seeing my friends or sleeping in my own bed, lots of driving and lots of crappy food - it really is a job and not all fun and games!)

So I tried again today to contact NBN. They have been posting a lot of bulletins lately and so I replied to one - this is what took place:

—————– Original Message —————–
From: RachelandtheCity
Date: Aug 31, 2007 2:07 PM

are there press passes available for this event?

I write a music blog, have three radio show and work for Ardent Studios - I have emailed several times about this and have never been responded to.

I would like to give your event coverage - if someone will respond to me.

—————– Original Message —————–
From: Next BIG Nashville Music Festival 2007 (SEPT 5-9)
Date: 31 Aug 2007, 12:11 PM

Sorry Rachel, but we are really just working with local press people. We don’t have many passes to begin with so we’re only able to hook up local press. I also never received any specific information about your music blog or the 3 stations that you work for. It was really vague. We are receiving coverage from The Tennessean, Nashville Scene, Nashville Rage, The City Paper, News Channel 2, News Channel 5, OutTheOther.com, NashvilleCream.com and about 20 others. (Rachelandthecity - do you have a response to this? Why yes I do, “Who?!?!?”) Sorry it didn’t work out this year and thanks for your interest.

-Ethan

—————– Original Message —————–
From: RachelandtheCity
Date: Aug 31, 2007 2:16 PM

Well, that really doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Why would you not want national coverage?

—————– Original Message —————–
From: Next BIG Nashville Music Festival 2007 (SEPT 5-9)
Date: 31 Aug 2007, 12:33 PM

It makes perfect sense Rachel. We are 5 days away from the festival. There are 2 of us running everything from booking 140+ bands, to acquiring local and national sponsorships to coordinating backline/concert production, marketing plan/promotions, etc.

2 of us.

“National” coverage is WAY down the line of priorities. Plus, you still haven’t sent me 1 link to any company, station, blog or anything that you work with. Every single professional press contact working on the festival at least gave us a press package, ad-plan or at least a one-sheet explaining who they are and what they do.

-Ethan

—————– Original Message —————–
From: RachelandtheCity
Date: Aug 31, 2007 3:04 PM

wow.

ok. I did send two messages asking what the procedure was.

You guys sent me a friend request so I just assumed you knew who I was and wanted my involvement. My mistake.

I do A&R for Ardent Studios and Ardent Records.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardent_Studios

I also run a music blog called Scenestars.net which receives over 10,000 page views daily.

Let’s see -(band names redacted) have all submitted music to me for review.

I also have three radio shows on breakthruradio.com, one of which is called The Bloggeratti and enjoys 500,000 listens per week worldwide - and all I play are up-and-coming artists and other well known bloggers and I talk about them.

Oh yeah, and for the past two years I have been one of the official bloggers for Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.

I think all of this is listed in the about me section on my Myspace. That’s why I thought you added me.

But, I guess if you don’t want any national coverage that’s certainly your prerogative.

—————– Original Message —————–
Next BIG Nashville Music Festival 2007 (SEPT 5-9)

You should have included this in your previous contact attempts. It looks good. You can’t assume that everyone reads your page before they send you a friend request. (Rachelandthecity - do you have a response to this? Why yes I do - “Um, What?!?!?!?”)

Nobody ever said we didn’t want National Coverage. I’m just not interested in it coming from someone with such a bad attitude. You catch more bees with honey.

-Ethan

So there you go. I just wanted all the bands, PR folks, and management that contacted me to know that I did my best to cover this event. But since “national” coverage is way down on this organization’s list of priorities, and I forgot to submit my jar of honey - I wish you all the very best in being “Big in Nashville!”

To be completely honest - I don’t even think wristbands are that expensive - but this whole exchange has soured me on even bothering. Of course, tomorrow, I might change my mind.

P.S. I’m sorry - I hate to be snarky (well, not that much!) but why would any band want to be in The Tennessean, Channel 2 or Channel 5? Sidenote: I used to be a music writer for the Commercial Appeal (Memphis’ answer to the Tennessean, Scripps Howard style daily, circulation 300,000 blah blah blah) - AND I was a assignment editor for Channel 5 in Memphis - the NBC affiliate - I would bet my whole head of hair less than 5% of the audience NBN is trying to attract reads the daily paper or watched the news! And definitely not for their music coverage!!! Would you?

Ok, Rant /off.

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